


Elysium

by thegirlwiththemouseyhair



Series: Ghost Story Continuity [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Afterlife, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 02:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2450819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/pseuds/thegirlwiththemouseyhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This follows the chapter The Going Down of the Sun in A Ghost Story, and shows Thomas and Edward in the afterlife together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elysium

They found a cottage by the lake that seemed to have been put there just for them. Perhaps it had been. Thomas described it to Edward, and said it was the spitting image of the pretty cottage that the valet back at Downton Abbey lived in with his wife while Thomas was alive. Edward had laughed at that, saying that he didn’t need his eyes to see here, on this plane. Besides, the cottage couldn’t be one of the Downton properties: it was exactly like the one on Edward’s family’s estate that had stood empty for years, and that he had often played in as a child.

It didn’t matter. They passed hours – eternity – there in drowsy joy. They could lie in their bed all day and talk of nothing, or even dare to make love in the pristine isolation of their lawn.

Thomas’s memories of life started to fade, but he knew he would never forget the sound of Edward’s laugh or the ecstasy of the first time they consummated their love in their bed of soft grass. He understood what Edward meant about not needing his eyes to see anymore. When he held Edward he felt as if he were holding the other man’s soul between his hands. When they united – when he moved insidehim – he could _see_ and rifle through all his love’s thoughts and joys and pains, and knew Edward was doing the same to him. And that intensity never wore off, here.

“I love you,” Thomas murmurs. It’s minutes or hours after they’ve both spent themselves – maybe even days – it’s difficult to say sometimes.

Edward puts his hand on Thomas’s arm and laughs his rich, warm laugh. His long legs are still entwined with Thomas’s own. Thomas beams at him.

“And I you,” Edward says. “It would have been so hard to say that when I was alive, though I can’t think why.”

Thomas can. Edward was too well born and well-bred to show his feelings much in his life, and he’s still rather shy, superfluous as _that_ is. But they’re happy in the way dreams can be happy, only this dream need never end.


End file.
